Automated telemarketing systems use programmed voice instructions to handle telephone calls desiring information concerning, for example, financial reports, airline schedules, stock and bond quotations, etc. In essence, and automated telemarketing system is a tree-like structure having a hierachy of nodes each branching out to other nodes, or services. A caller is "talked" through a path starting at a root node, through several intermediate nodes and thence to the desired service. This is done by providing at each node a prerecorded verbal description of the services offered by the next branch of nodes. A caller selects each step in the path by inputting via his/her telephone a digit associated with the next node that the user desires to reach.
The complexity of an automated telemarketing system/user interface is geared to the type of services that the system provides. For example, in a simple automated telemarketing system providing banking services, a caller may only need to deal with one or two levels of prerecorded menus to reach a desired service point. However, in a complex automated telemarketing system providing, for example, stock and bond quotations, a caller may have to deal with four or more levels of prerecorded menus to reach a desired service point.
Human factors studies show that most callers are reluctant to deal with three or more levels of prerecorded menus and are more reluctant to do so when each menu contains four or more service announcements. To deal with this problem, some callers memorize the sequence of digits that they enter to reach a particular service point. Thereafter, they enter a digit of the sequence when reaching a respective node, or menu level to prelude having to listen to a litany of menu items.